Master Sword and Mini-games

Continuing my Twilight Princess playthrough:

Last time, I had just finished with the third dungeon and was getting ready for the standard mid-game excitement that exists in every Zelda title. I must admit I was a bit disappointed by it this go around. I ran to the castle, talked to Zelda then went off in search of the Master Sword. Like always, it was in the forest.

The guy I found "guarding" the forest was... well... weird. He would disappear/reappear and then blow his trumpet to summon these puppet-like things. There was basically no explanation offered (perhaps later?) and the whole thing just felt a little odd to me. The final entrance to the Sacred Grove was guarded by two statues I had to move around in a little puzzle mini-game that was actually pretty interesting although not overly difficult.

With the Master Sword in my grasp, I was given two new abilities that I was hoping I would get:

1. I could warp at any time
   
2. I could transform between human and wolf forms at will

While both of these abilities were fully expected, I was grateful that the game didn't let me down. The ability to warp at will was definitely a welcome change.

With nothing pushing me seriously in any direction, I decided to check out the mini-games that were offered thus far. I definitely found myself a tad disappointed. I really enjoyed the bow/slingshot/bombchu mini-games from Ocarina of Time and felt that these didn't quite live up to what had previously been offered.

Description of games with my impressions of each:

• Up by the Zora domain along the river, there is a hut that offers a boat ride + bomb arrow mini-game. It was pretty much what I expected: ride down the river in the boat while shooting something (pots, in this case) with bomb arrows. I'm still not quite sure why they were bomb arrows instead of regular arrows, but it didn't make much difference. The real sticky thing here is that you have to steer the boat itself and if you bump into anything, you lose a point. I found the boat to be notoriously difficult to pilot (especially while shooting) and had to to this particular game about 5 times. Given that each run took 4-5 minutes, it was frustrating to say the least -- although the bigger bomb bag reward was a big win.
  
• Near the boat mini-game is the fishing hole. Fishing in Twilight Princess is done VERY well as it involves using the nunchuck to reel the fish in and the Wii-mote to cast and control the pole. You even have a canoe to paddle around the lake. While I think the whole setup is quite good here, after a quick glance online, I found that the rewards are relatively lackluster. That sort of disappointed me and I left. I'll probably come back though and screw around later.
• Inside the fishing hole, there is something of a hidden mini-game... you access it by going into first person mode and then looking at it. It's basically a Monkey-Ball-style game where you use the Wii-mote to control a box to make a ball roll along a path. Completing it rewards you with another fishing lure, but I found this game to be CRAZY hard. I gave up pretty quickly.
• Starting from Lake Hylia, you can summon a bird/dragon thing to carry you up the river towards the Zora domain. Along the way, there are big balloons you can fly into and pop: watermelons, oranges, and strawberries. As you'd expect, they are each worth a variety of points. Each time you get a specific kind in a row, the amount of points you get doubles. By collecting only strawberries, the 10th balloon is worth something like 5k points. The prize (a heart container) was obtained from getting ten thousand. This one took me a couple of tries, but wasn't that bad and was relatively entertaining.
• Inside Castle Town, you can go into a cage and are given 30 seconds to collect orbs. If you try this early in the game (I did), it makes it pretty clear you need the hookshot clawshot to get them all. I went back with it and got them on my second try. Quite easy and really not all that fun.
• Also around Lake Hylia (why are so many mini-games around the lake/river?), you can grab a chicken and attempt to glide out towards "Treasure Island." Basically, you just have to let go at the right time to land on a small platform containing a chest. I tried it once and figured I'd go back later.

There may be a couple of other mini-games, but that's definitely the bulk of them. Overall, I was NOT impressed.

With my mini-games done and my items upgraded (new quiver, new bomb bag, and a new wallet), I decided to press onwards with the storyline. It felt pretty obvious I was going to be headed into the desert next, mostly because it's the one place I hadn't been. A trip back to town followed by a trip back to the lake and then a pretty short canon ride later, I found myself standing at the edge of the desert. I then had to run across a ridiculously large area to get up to the next dungeon.

Dungeon #4 is the Arbiter's Grounds... whatever that means. This dungeon did something that the game has completely failed to do so far: surprise me. Initially, you work your way through a few rooms and eventually come to a gate which gets closed in front of you as four Poes steal some blue flames. While chasing after Poe flames is NOT a new Zelda concept, having to transform into a wolf to follow their scents or even to see/fight them is. This part of the dungeon was pretty decent and had some interesting areas, including one were I ran right by a Poe hiding spot because I wasn't sensing in wolf form. After I took down the four Poes, I ran through the locked gate into the next part of the dungeon.

This second half of the dungeon felt oddly disconnected from the first half. It felt like I should have gotten a weapon after defeating all the Poes, but I didn't... I was just sort of pushed into a new area. While this area was similar, it definitely felt different.

It was also in this area that I found something that turned out to be the most annoying thing in the game so far. In a particular room, you run between platforms with "slow you down" quicksand in between. To exit the room, you must pull open a door and then quickly run through it. As I was in this room, I suddenly found myself in the slow motion walk while on the solid part of the ground. It REALLY felt like the game had a bug in it where I was not exiting the slow walk when I got out of the quicksand. I found that the only way I could get it to return to the regular speed/animation was to fall into the quicksand and restart the room. It SO felt like a glitch, that I eventually looked it up online and found somebody else who ALSO thought it was a bug. The very short response to his question: "wolf senses." I quickly went back to the game, transformed into a wolf, turned on my senses, did a spinning attack to get the invisible rats off my back, and groaned quite audibly. While I appreciated what they were trying to do here, if your game mechanic feels like a bug, it probably isn't a good mechanic.

Before too long, I found myself at the "weapon" boss. This fight involved switching to wolf form to see him and get an initial blow in and then switching back to human form to sword/bow him. The battle seemed to be a very logical continuation from the Poes earlier in the dungeon, but felt really out of place where it was. I personally think this fight should have occurred in the gate room right after I got the final Poe's flame.

Anyway, after downing the boss I ran up to the weapon chest. For the first time in the game so far, I had NO idea what to expect. Inside was... the spinner? The spinner is a spinning platform that you can throw down and ride on. Its main purpose inside this dungeon is to ride over all the quicksand everywhere. Also, throughout that part of the dungeon, there are slots in the walls that the spinner can attach onto. I'm not quite sure how to describe it, but needless to say, it's definitely unique.

As was to be expected, the spinner helped me reach the boss key and eventually the boss himself. The first part of the final boss fight involved me spinning around him while bumping off and smashing into his spine. After 3 hits, he "died" and I found myself on the floor next to him. With no heart container in sight, I was a little confused and also surprised by how easy he was. As I should have guessed, I still had phase 2 to get through which was a crazy spinner ride that had me hopping between two walls and trying to smash into the flying boss head. I quickly finished him up (even the second section wasn't too hard) and gathered up my heart piece. While this was hands down the easiest boss I had fought so far, the kill mechanic was without a doubt the most interesting and unique that I had so far encountered.

Once outside, I was introduced to the "rest of the story" which finally introduced Ganon(dorf) and let me know I had 3 more dungeons to look forward to. At that point, it was getting late so I called it a night.

While the mini-games ended up being a pretty big yawn fest, the change in the game to allow more freedom (via warping and transforming) coupled with the best-yet fourth dungeon provided me with one of the best play sessions so far. My expectations for the rest of the game remain cautiously high.